Choices

The problem with people that sway more towards “the arts” side of thinking is often they (or I) quit before we’re ahead.  Or some of us, rather (* hand goes up).  I overthink and ruin the creative process (sometimes)... Then other times, the passion of the expression overtakes and I go for it, in this sublime attempt to pour it out and then:  boom, magic.  Note: I’m neither making claim to fizzle or fizz. Anyways.. 

I think it’s safe to say I quit while I’m ahead a lot, though. That whole concept is a silly lie in and of  itself,… “quitting while you’re ahead”?  It doesn’t make sense.  Yet, I can measure times throughout my life where I was just on the edge of something special to just recoil back…

Not quite worthy.  

I'd let the hardships and the challenges tell me I couldn't do it.

 Even though the hardships had a hand in shaping me, making me into exactly who I am, and who I am not.. I don't think it's the hard stuff that intends to hold us/me back from that special thing that keeps dying out..   Maybe shame keeps doing that? Shame that has been closer than a brother.  Carried for as long as I can remember. Going with me to school in my primary years… lurking in my home life growing up.  That always feeling… knocking… whispering.  There was still plenty of awesome, though! I wasn't this dark kid always carrying this heavy stuff..  No, we played in the ditch (obviously, I’m a part of that last generation without internet growing up).   We got dirty.   We imagined.   We burped the alphabet and ate too much sugar.  We rode our bikes everywhere and trusted strangers to give us a ride home in the back of their pickup if the tires went flat.  It was a good childhood. 

But it's the hardships in my life that have made me who I am.   Ok, to be fair… the good stuff carries valid weight also.  Some days are so full of love and peace and happiness that you’d hold your breath just to savor the light.  But, sometimes the days are heavy.  The thought of regret.   The “God… I should have's".   The Shame.  The deep places of just, pain.   The pain we can’t make sense of.    I say "we", because I know I’m not alone.  THAT stuff… it’s heavy.   It’s dark and it can ruin a life.   It can ruin the special, the set apart, the good and perfect.. 

Early on I was good at hiding the shame. Coping with that “feeling” that I couldn’t really identify then.  It drove me to feel just not quite “good”.  I coped how I saw those dear to me, those who loved me, coped.  Smuggling in Vodka to school .. WHY?   Hell, I don’t know. To be cool?  No, that little girl was hurting somewhere.  At some point I decided that alcohol wasn't it for me.  I honestly chose and knew I didn’t want to be like my  parents (Love you Mom and Dad ) and so I became a pot-head instead. Found my meaning!  Nah. I was still covering.. covering the pain. You know it’s not some big secret I was covering.  Like half of the population, my parents divorced when I was young.  There were common things and are common things that develop “pain” out of that one thing; divorce.  I hate it.  God hates it.   But, life goes on.

In the moment, we don’t know the weight of our choices... or some of us, at least.  How it will affect us. Those close to us. Those not so close to us. Our choices have this ripple effect and pulse out into the world.  They carry weight.   Sometimes tons of it!  I'm not just talking about the big stuff always either.  Sometimes those little choices… tons of them.. to be kind to a stranger… or to your spouse or to your kids when they are bugging the crap out of you! Sometimes, the tussle is with weightier choices.. Things that give wings to change. Good things. Then there are times when it appears like there is no choice or freedom of choice at all.  The empowering truth is.. I always have a choice. You always have a choice. 

More than hardships, more than positive experiences, the freedom of choice carries more weight into molding you/me into something meaningful than I think I've come to fully realize… Will I allow heavy situations to attach themselves and become my identity? Or will I take them for what they are.  Use them to become a stronger version of myself?  

Only time will tell.